


he's got you on a pedestal and me in his arms

by bronson



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, sry not sry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronson/pseuds/bronson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Creme brulee can never be Jell-O." The only problem is that Davos isn't exactly sure which one he is. In a modern day New York AU where Stannis is getting married to Melisandre and Davos realizes things that are contrary to what he's supposed to feel when his best friend tells him the news. </p>
<p>Originally meant to be a <i>My Best Friend's Wedding</i> AU but veered off-track at some point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a homage to [FortinbrasFTW](http://fortinbrasftw.tumblr.com)'s epic fic [_Empathy & Apathy_](archiveofourown.org/works/481730), to which this fic can only hope to be the Richard Curtis remake of a Joe Wright masterpiece. For [Emma](http://barrichello.tumblr.com) (the cunt xoxo), beta'd by [Shace](http://perkybottoms.tumblr.com), [Michele](http://whoistorule.tumblr.com), and [Abi](http://huntersons.tumblr.com). Any and all mistakes still found herein are due to my stubbornness.

"I'm getting married."  
  
Davos looks up from his beer. They're in a bar somewhere along 2nd Ave. Not their usual haunt. It's noisy and cramped with people, and they've had to shout into each other's ears for the better part of an hour. Davos doesn't mind. Stannis, of course, has done his very best to keep his elbows close to his side, faintly grimacing every now and then when a drunken student invades his personal space.  
  
 _I'm getting married_ , Stannis had said, and Davos blinks. Not sure if he’d heard correctly.  
  
Davos shakes his head, barely recovering. "Why?"  
  
Stannis frowns. "Why what?"  
  
"Why are you getting married?"  
  
Stannis shrugs, and Davos recognizes the gesture as one of speechlessness rather than casual indifference. He knows Stannis. He's the type of person who doesn't do anything without a reason better than 'just because' or 'because I'm at the age where I should be married' or 'why not?' He needs something more than that, to the point of being insufferably stubborn that Davos is sure that he’s learned a thing or two about patience in Stannis’ company.  
  
"I mean--" Davos clears his throat, his fingers shift around the glass, forming a loose fist. "--Well."  
  
Stannis is looking at him, waiting for him to speak his mind. Davos always does. There isn't much to it--he says what needs to be said; Stannis listens and gets from it what he wants, or doesn’t.  
  
"I love her," Stannis blurts out, and the words flop gracelessly from his mouth with no affectation to them whatsoever, no more than a straightforward account of the way the stock market plummeted half a point when it closed, and rose again when it opened, the usual humdrum of his job that Davos has been patient to lend an ear to whenever they got together at day's end.  
  
This is different. Davos doesn't nod as he usually does--with barely half his interest sharpening his attention, or his ire, or his interest.  
  
The bar shifts. A new wave of people come in. The noise returns.  
  
Davos shakes his head again. "I didn’t even know you were dating anyone." _Or that you... actually... dated._  
  
Stannis' face shutters. His jaw clenches. "I didn't realize I needed to report to you about everything I do."  
  
No, you don't, Davos thinks bitterly.  
  
Davos is his friend--and at the end of the day that's all he is. Davos isn't his mother, or his keeper, and Davos certainly never insinuated that he's anything more than he is.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
They've been friends for nearly twenty years, since that day Davos had drunkenly stumbled into Stannis' dorm room at Columbia, with a solo cup in one hand and a girl’s perfume stuck on his shirt. Among other things.  
  
"Who the fuck--" Stannis had exclaimed, jumping out of his bed dressed rather unimpressively in his worn Collegiate shirt and his boxers. There was the sound of a crash, of books dropping to the floor.  
  
Davos stood at the threshold, leaning heavily against the doorframe. In the haze of beer (among other things)-- he laughed. He laughed long and hard and rather obnoxiously, then promptly keeled over in a slump.  
  
Insensible for the rest of that evening, he came to in the position he fell unconscious in. His back throbbed, his neck ached, and a sickening lurch rolled in his gut at every turn of his head. He groaned when he opened his eyes.  
  
It was midday. Noon, if the heat on his shirt from the wide-open curtains was anything to go by.  
  
"Get up," said someone who sounded like he wasn't going to do anything to make it easier for the both of them.  
  
Davos groaned and stayed where he was. He was winched rather painfully into a corner, the door's hinges digging into his side. He raised his head, groaned anew when bile rose in his throat. He wanted to puke.  
  
"Don't puke."  
  
He didn't. But he groaned for the nth time, in the vernacular of the miserably hungover, and screwed his eyes shut against the light and the nausea and that damn voice ordering him around.  
  
Limbs heavy, it took a while for him to realize that someone's lifting him by his arms. His head lolled forward, thumped a chest covered stiffly by a starched shirt. When he breathed, he smelled detergent, crisp and sharp. It made his head swim.  
  
"Don't puke," the voice said again.  
  
Davos kept his jaw clenched shut, made no promises, and tried very, very hard to keep his stomach calm with even breaths through his nose.  
  
How the person managed to lift him from the floor to the single bed pushed against the wall, Davos didn't exactly know, and neither did he care. He sighed, relieved, as his head hit a pillow, and his legs were cushioned by softness.  
  
"Hey." A finger jabbed him sharply in the ribs.  
  
"Fuck off," Davos said, sloppily batting the offending digit away with an uncoordinated jerk of his wrist. He turned over on his front, shifted once, and fell asleep.  
  
When he woke up next, it was almost dark outside. The clock on the bedside table said six forty-five. Six forty-five, Davos echoed in his head, still half-asleep. His chin barely lifted from the pillow. _What day is it?_  
  
Shit.  
  
He had a meeting today.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
He sat up, panicked, levering himself on his elbows. He looked around, frowned at the unfamiliar room, the unfamiliar bed. He found a note next to the clock, propped up by a glass of water that, at some point, must've been cold, judging from the small pool of moisture on the table, soaking the note's edges.  
  
Written on a torn piece of yellow legal pad paper:  
  
 _Get out of my room. Don't steal anything._  
  
He barely remembered the last twenty-four hours. He did remember a frat party, doing a kegstand, and scoring a quickie in someone's room.  
  
Was this that someone's room?  
  
He doubted it.  
  
Didn't look like a girl's room, judging by the spartan neatness of it. Or maybe it was a very tidy girl’s room.  
  
The worn pair of Levi’s thrown over the back of a chair told him otherwise.  
  
Didn't look like anyone's room, come to think of it. Just a room that happened to have a bed, bare in that blankness of a room in semi-limbo, adrift between owners. Save for that Levi’s. But maybe that Levi’s was as much of a guest as Davos himself was.  
  
With a shrug, Davos dragged himself off the bed. He tried to tidy up as much as he could, checked himself once on the mirror by the door. Bags under his eyes, his eyelids heavy, his clothes wrinkled-- great, he looked high. He shrugged again. _Whatever._  
  
Just before heading out -- _without stealing anything, thanks_ \--he grabbed a pen from the (neat) pen holder on the desk and scribbled a reply on the note:  
  
 _Thanks for the bed._  
  
Then, with a smirk and a sense of vindication he blamed on the hangover gearing for a boulder of a headache, added:  
  
 _Need a potted plant? Room looks deader than Mad Max's backyard._  
  
He saw Stannis again at the next frat party. Never mind that said frat party was actually across the street from Stannis’ building. When fraternities and sororities organized ‘social gatherings’, they usually became ‘communal’.  
  
“It’s kinda like charity, man,” said Beta Theta Pi’s public relations officer, as Davos was handed a cheque worth more than half of the year’s rent for his studio apartment in Brooklyn (that he shared with a couple of other people to split the cost). “We’re like a soup kitchen, you get what I mean? But with booze.”  
  
So the party spilled over, from the frat house’s front lawn, to the street, to the alleys at the back, to the apartment buildings close by.  
  
“Hey,” he asked someone -- student, grad student, freshman, senior, he wasn’t sure, but he was someone he could ask so he did. He needed to take a piss. Something could be said of his business ethics when he took samples of his own merchandise but hey, free booze, so why not. “Where’s the, um, the...”  
  
“Wha--” The student blinked up at him. The owlish daze to his eyes was easily recognizable. If the student lived in the building, then he certainly wasn’t anywhere on that plane of existence at the moment.  
  
“Yeah, never mind,” Davos sighed.  
  
He wasn’t drunk. Tipsy, maybe, bordering on happy and blissfully numb about the cheeks, but he hadn’t been plastered since that night, when he passed out and found himself in a stranger’s bedroom. (Not for the first time, mind. He’d seen his fair share of frat parties, even though he didn’t belong to any frat. Or that he wasn’t exactly in school to be in a frat.)  
  
The corridor was packed with people going in and out, stumbling here, ambling there. Most of them huddled in pairs, and in groups, and none of them being the studious young people they were supposed to be, spending half a fortune in the Ivy League, and half a fortune more living in a building so close to the heart of the city, where they were neighbors with CEOs, COOs, and other C-Os of notable significance.  
  
He should be feeling bad about it, that people like him had to work two jobs a week--six hours for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at a bar in SoHo, and most of Saturday and Sunday playing errand boy for his neighbor’s cousin’s father whose business Davos didn’t exactly know about, or cared about as long as he got paid. Meanwhile, these spoiled rich kids partied virtually every night, contracted people like him to bring in the booze.  
  
But he was getting paid, so he didn’t feel too bad about it for too long.  
  
Someone stumbled into him. Turning, he caught a whiff of liquor made rank by hot breath. “Hey, man, easy,” he said with a grimace, nudging the kid away, to which the kid mumbled a slurred ‘Hey, sorry, sorry... _sorry_ ,’ and wandered away, solo cup listing in a loose fist.  
  
When he next turned his eyes back to where he was going, it was too late to stop himself from bumping into someone else.  
  
“Sorry, didn’t see you there.”  
  
“Yeah,” the person said gruffly, the roll of his eyes better heard than seen.  
  
The voice sounded familiar. His eyes shot up in recognition.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Hey yourself,” the man replied, then quickly shouldered past him.  
  
Davos hurried after him. “You’re the dude with the wasteland room, right?”  
  
The man -- well, now that Davos got a better look at him wasn’t exactly a man. He was more of a boy. An older boy, or a young man, Davos couldn’t really tell. He looked young, but the shrewdness to his eyes and the stern set to his face contradicted that well enough that Davos couldn’t be entirely sure. Said man didn’t reply and just kept walking.  
  
“Well not really a wasteland. Kinda the opposite, actually.”  
  
No response.  
  
“Hey,” Davos said with a laugh. “Dude, come on. I’m sorry, alright? Had a few drinks--”  
  
“I could report you.“ The man paused briefly, giving him a sidelong glance that suddenly made Davos feel a bit like the high school delinquent that he had been, called frequently into the principal’s office and (just as frequently) served with a detention slip.  
  
“Eerie.”  
  
The man frowned. “What?”  
  
Davos shook his head. His hand waved about in a dismissive-placating gesture saying, ‘No, sorry, it’s nothing,’ but he went on and asked anyway. _Just to be sure._  
  
“Dude, you’re not a professor, are you?”  
  
The man clenched his teeth, a bit too tightly that Davos wasn’t sure if he was going to get punched in the face or punched in the nuts. “You don’t go around sleeping in other people’s rooms. Especially when they’re studying for midterms,” the man said instead, showing no outward sign that he was going to punch Davos anywhere after all.  
  
Davos let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “It’s college, these things happen.” _Don’t they?_ Davos wasn’t sure but from what he’d seen of Beta and the other fraternities and sororities he’d been contracted for-- it _seemed_ like the norm.  
  
“They shouldn’t,” was all the man said about that and walked on.  
  
“Yeah,” Davos trailed off, skeptically.  
  
“You don’t invade other people’s beds either.”  
  
“Yeah,” Davos said again, a bit sheepishly now as he raked a hand through his hair, embarrassed. “Sorry about that.”  
  
“So you said.”  
  
“Yep,” Davos nodded. He hazarded a smile. It died when the man didn’t even look liked he’d noticed. Or cared. “So... we’re good?”  
  
“Good?”  
  
Davos shrugged, sidestepping a puddle of something he didn’t want to know as he tried to match the man’s pace. “Like, no bad blood? No thugs pulling me out of bed in the middle of the night to exact payment for being an ass?”  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
Davos chuckled. “Matters to me, I don’t wanna get beat up.” It was a joke, or at least he wanted it to be a joke. He really didn’t want it to not be a joke.  
  
The man reined in a sigh with visible effort that his shoulders shuddered. “We’re not acquainted.”  
  
They rounded a corner.  
  
“Well yeah, but you said you knew my name.”  
  
The man gave a nod, as stiff and crisp as his stride, then came to a stop by a door that Davos would’ve recognized if he’d had been sober enough at the time for his memory to take notice.  
  
“Davos Seaworth, 25 years old, from the state of New Jersey. Bit too old to be a student but what do I know, you might be taking your masters.” The man gave him a once-over that made Davos feel like his shoe size was suddenly wrong for the split-second it took. “But you’re not. Not in this school, anyway.”  
  
“How did you-- ah.” Davos pursed his lips. “Driver’s license. Wallet. Right.”  
  
“I had to make sure I wasn’t harboring a wanted criminal.”  
  
“So you thought to look in my wallet?”  
  
“You slept on my bed. Fair deal, I think.”  
  
Davos huffed, a smile tempting to curl his lips. He allowed it. He was a friendly guy, he could smile his way out of a lot of things. But the man remained stern, unaffected, and Davos cleared his throat, pretending that he hadn’t even been trying so really, he hadn’t just failed.  
  
“Was that all?”  
  
If he wasn’t going anywhere with this guy, he shrugged and backed off. “Yeah okay, see you ar--”  
  
But the man had already disappeared behind the door. It clicked closed before Davos even realized.  
  
“--ound, then.” Davos snorted. “Asshole.”  
  
Loudly enough that he heard through the door, “Ruffian,” the man replied.  
  
Davos grinned, shook his head both at himself and at the fact that someone at this day and age still used the word ‘ruffian’, and went on his way. He was on the train back to Brooklyn when he realized that he’d forgotten to get the man’s name.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“So who is she? Anyone I know?” Davos asks when their next round arrives.  
  
Stannis looks dubiously at his bottle, shifts the swiftly moistening tissue paper that toweled it, before he answers. “No, I don’t think so.”  
  
Davos waits. When no answer was forthcoming, he opens his mouth. “Oka--”  
  
“Her name’s Melisandre. We met in Paris last year.”  
  
“Last year?” Davos tries to remember where he was last year. He was still on earth last year. He was already alive last year.  
  
 _Then why the hell did you not saying anything then?_  
  
Stannis starts so violently that the bottle wobbles between his hands, and he hurries to grasp it tightly before it tilts over.  
  
“Hey,” he says, stern in his surprise. “Keep it down.”  
  
Davos blinks. “Sorry,” not realizing that he’d actually said it out loud. By out loud, of course, he must’ve said it rather loudly that they’d earned odd looks from some of the patrons sitting nearby.  
  
“Well, we weren’t dating then.”  
  
Dating. Stannis Baratheon said the word so casually as if he’d always said the word. As if he’d always dated. In the years that they’ve been friends, Davos remembers the one person Stannis ‘dated’. Whatever ‘dated’ meant to him, at least. Selyse, an heiress to a fortune that Davos had guessed to be a rather big one, judging by the few Page Six mentions of Stannis’ name attached to hers. They’d met at some party, then for a brief time, she’d been his plus one at the few other parties Stannis actually attended, and he’d been her plus one in the several more parties that Stannis actually bothered to attend. Then several months passed, Stannis never saw Selyse again, he didn’t have any other plus-ones, and he wasn’t anyone else’s plus-one either.  
  
It’d been almost five years since then.  
  
“Okay, what changed?”  
  
“Nothing. We just... started dating.”  
  
“Now you’re getting married.”  
  
“I was there when I told you five minutes ago.”  
  
Davos ignores the jape. “But this is happening so fast, I mean--” _Where do I even fucking begin?_ “--Not that I’m... not happy for you,” he recovers quickly, but even he knows that there’s not nearly enough sincerity in his heart to give the slightest bit of sincerity in his words. “Because that’s great, you’re getting married! That’s...” He nods slowly, chewing on the thought. “That’s great.”  
  
He takes a sip of his beer, and when that’s not enough he takes another.  
  
Stannis peers at him. “You sound ecstatic.”  
  
Davos thinks about telling Stannis what a person was usually told when he’d just given such... great... news. Then Davos meets Stannis’ eyes and realizes that he can’t lie without being caught before he even opens his mouth. So he settles for the truth, as he usually does, even though this is going to be another addition to the startlingly large pile of reluctant-truths that, somewhere between his head and his mouth, had actually formed as lies, only to unravel when his self-confidence falls short of his intent.  
  
“It’s just...”  
  
Stannis nods. “Go on.”  
  
“It’s just... So. Fast,” he pushes out eventually, for the lack of a better way to word the damn thing.  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
Davos frowns. “Of course it matters. It takes time for you to know someone. Especially if you’re going to marry them. Her. _Marry her_.”  
  
Stannis rights himself in his chair, in that way that he does when he’s preparing himself for a long discussion, or when he’s trying to be patient. It doesn’t take much for Davos to know that in this case, he’s doing it for both reasons.  
  
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”  
  
 _Except you’re doing it anyway_ , thinks Davos.  
  
“But she’s... Established. She works, she’s smart, I can talk to her.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And what?”  
  
“You love her.”  
  
Stannis nods. Tentatively. It can just be the beer fogging his eyes, but Davos insists upon the existence of an emotion that falls just short of certainty. (Besides, three bottles; _Ha. Fuckin’ spit on three damn bottle_ s.)  
  
Naturally, like the good friend that he likes to think that he is, _Can’t let him ram straight into a wall. Especially when it looks like he’s not entirely sure that it’s a wall. Or that there can even be a wall._  
  
“You love her because...”  
  
“Is it something you explain?” asks Stannis, and if it were someone else, then Davos would’ve left it at that, but Stannis, in spite of his flat tone, doesn’t entirely sound like he’s being rhetorical.  
  
It sounds like a question that Stannis _actually_ wants to be answered.  
  
And Davos doesn’t _actually_ know where to begin. He takes another swig of beer.  
  
 _No_ , it’s not something you explain. Davos knows that well enough.  
  
He can’t explain why he loves Marya so much, even after fifteen years of marriage. He just does. In the same way that he can’t explain why he’s stuck around with Stannis for so long. He just did. He’s still doing it.  
  
Things can’t be explained, like the existence of God, or a god, or how, exactly, the stock market works, or why people get a kick out of torturing animals, or how cancer can be eradicated, or a lot of things, really, except that the difference between Stannis’ justification and all the other issues that need reasons but don’t have them at this point in time is that at least with God, or gods, or cancer, or animal cruelty, there at least exists a number of academic studies pointing to the direction of an inevitable conclusion. To be figured out at a later date.  
  
Whereas Stannis and love and dating... Davos shakes his head.  
  
“You love her,” he says again, fully aware of how dumb he sounds and how Stannis must think highly of him and his cognitive skills right now.  
  
Stannis bristles. “You don’t have to sound so surprised. At least not to my face.”  
  
“Yeah but you know I’m surprised.”  
  
“You have ten different facial expressions for ‘sad’. I’d be blind not to notice.”  
  
 _Ten?_ Then Davos grunts. He’s not going to be distracted. “So what gives?”  
  
“She...” Stannis grimaces, and for the first time for fuck knows how long, Davos sees the intense concentration on Stannis’ face that he’d only ever seen the once, when Stannis had been pacing in his living room, dissertation in hand, anxiously preparing for the last round of his professors’ badgering before getting his PhD. (Preceded by several weeks of little sleep and little of everything else that talking to him had been like talking to a wasp, in that human speech was incapable of ever commanding the attention of a wasp. So the wasp buzzed on. Waspishly. And so did Stannis. Stannisly.)  
  
Davos chuckles. “Great argument.”  
  
Stannis rolls his eyes, then sobers, and sombers, as if he hasn’t actually tucked in two bottles of beer in the last hour. He’s a bit of a lightweight, even though he protests that he isn’t most of the time, but Stannis never drinks. Or as close to never as one could get when his brothers drink, his father used to drink, most of his co-workers hang out in bars when the market closes for the day, and his apartment building’s pretty much landmarked by several popular bars, Central Park aside.  
  
To say that Stannis is stubborn is to be so painfully obvious, it’s actually a retrograde from the rapid growth of rational thought in the 21st century.  
  
(Amazingly enough, when Stannis means ‘never’ he really does mean ‘never’. It takes a very special occasion to get him to drink. Meanwhile, Davos eats pizza with beer. Watches the Yankees with beer--because how else can you watch the Yankees--and certainly knows now that if he ever needs someone to go with him to a baseball game, it isn’t Stannis.  
  
Although Davos, if he were to admit it to himself, and not without some pride, mind, he likes to think that he’s softened Stannis a little bit over the years. ‘Never’ has gone down to ‘one bottle’  to, recently, ‘two bottles’. By the time Stannis is seventy, why, he might even be able to knock back _three_ bottles. Imagine that, Davos once mused with a silly grin on his face that Stannis wiped right off with a light slap to his cheek. “We’re at a funeral. Have some respect.”)  
  
Davos quiets too. Softly, all humor gone, he asks, “Hey, are you sure?”  
  
“’Course I am. When I make decisions I follow through.”  
  
It’s true.  
  
Eight years ago, Stannis decided to buy a car even though Davos expressly told him that buying a car in New York and attempting to _drive it_ in New York was as useless as buying a car in New York and attempting to drive it in New York.  
  
He was, of course, right.  
  
But Stannis stuck with it anyway, and Davos knew he had a bitch of a time finding a parking slot, only to lose it again the morning after, then to find it again the following evening, then looking for it again, and on it went, and Stannis may have lost an inch on his hairline in the several months that he tried to lend dignity to what was clearly a very stupid mistake. But he stuck with it.  
  
He was miserable for a while -- and that was no fun ride for Davos either -- but he stuck with it. Davos had to admire him for that, and he said as much, then followed the praise with, ‘You’d be stupid to do it again,’ which was responded with the cold shoulder that, as it stands, is as far as anyone can manage to get Stannis Baratheon to admit that he’s just human and that humans, surprisingly, make mistakes sometimes.  
  
“She... she believes... that,” Stannis works through the words in his throat, downs halfway through the bottle’s neck in an attempt to reshuffle, reorganize. Prevaricate. (Davos has seen it all before, so he waits it out. Like he usually does.) “She thinks I can run the company better than Robert. That I should be running it. Instead of Robert.”  
  
 _Oh._  
  
If Stannis has a sweet spot, it’s his brother. If Stannis has a sore spot -- and he has many -- it’s still his brother. For the woman -- _Melisandre_ \-- to play at the soreness and use it into a strength, then, _Good job, you can do wonders with carbon emissions_ , but Davos can’t hide his doubt. It shows rather plainly on his face, and he’s sure that Stannis sees it for what it is, but Stannis chooses to ignore it anyway.  
  
“It’s not a matter of... Love,” Stannis continues.  
  
“But you said--”  
  
Stannis snaps, “I know what I said.”  
  
Davos relents. “Okay.”  
  
“I don’t think you understand.”  
  
“But I d--”  
  
“You don’t,” Stannis says, his voice hard, and with that tone, and that frown darkening his brow, Davos knows that there’s no budging Stannis from where he sits.  
  
Davos comes from a family of a middle-class means. His parents still live in New Jersey. He sees them every now and then, but going home once or twice every couple of years, taking the train from New York to New Jersey, going to the suburbs-- it amazes him every time, that he’d grown up in a place so different from where he lives now when the two aren’t so physically far from each other. There’s the Hudson between them and that’s it. Hell, he grew up watching the lights crawl up the New York skyline, watching from the pier.  
  
But that’s not all there is, and Davos knows that too. He’s known it since he made the decision to move out of Hoboken when he was eighteen, fresh out of getting kicked from high school, to try and make something of himself somewhere far away. Not so far that he’d lose contact, but definitely a world away from what he’d been familiar with.  
  
The people he’s met-- they’re different too. They’d been all by themselves, doing as he himself was planning to do, and none of them looked satisfied with their lives. The super of his first building -- where he had an apartment (to put it generously) with a sparsely furnished room the size of a pantry (to put it generously) -- was a middle-aged man with no children, no life outside of his job. Davos once wondered about what he thought of what he had, and figured that he had no business knowing, and that it wouldn’t help his then state of unemployment to know about someone else’s.  
  
He doesn’t know politics, and he’s damn sure Stannis doesn’t either. In those first few months of establishing some unspoken routine -- stumbling into Stannis’ dorm room unannounced, when the frat party next door was at full swing, and the beer was in the kegs, and the payments had been made, and it was too late to catch a cab back to Brooklyn without risking a mugging in the process, and when they talked sometimes, sometimes not, when he watched Stannis study, and bugged him with questions, and sometimes not, and sometimes napped on the floor where he’d fallen in a dead faint that first time, only to be ‘allowed’ onto Stannis’ bed eventually (three months) to take a nap (three hours) before getting kicked out (3AM, in the middle of the semester, 7AM during finals week).  
  
In those first few months, Davos already knew that the kid he’d imposed his friendship upon was not the type of kid to even properly be called a kid even when he actually was one at the time. He was stern, and stiff, and what other kids called a ‘square’ behind his back (even though Davos had had the nagging suspicion that Stannis knew that too).  
  
When Davos was all-smiles, Stannis never so much as answered with a proper smile back. His humor was dry, and he laughed but a handful of times each instance Davos recounted in vivid detail, having marveled at the sound—and at the sight—unsure if it was actual, genuine laughter or if Stannis was having a seizure.  
  
Stannis doesn’t know politics, but Stannis is from old money.  
  
He has a house in Rhode Island, one that sits atop some impressive-looking cliffs, with a strip of the beach, and a private dock with a yacht, _Windproud_ , anchored there and never really taken out to sea, a maid or two puttering about, with parties of the garden variety and not at all the rowdy frat variety thrown every once in awhile for someone’s birthday (Robert’s), with relatives coming in and making one happy picture of a happy upper-class family wearing beige and pastel colors.  
  
They have a street named after them in Newport. They have plaques on hospitals, donors of this, donors of that. Stannis’ father, Steffon Baratheon, has an entire wing named after him, and his mother Cassana was actually in the city council until her death.  
  
Their family business is a multibillion-dollar enterprise on three continents. His brother Robert is currently running for governor; his younger brother Renly, fresh out of Harvard grad school, is the youngest General Manager of any company at age twenty-seven.  
  
People like them, their politics are different.  
  
While Stannis can’t charm his way of a traffic violation (and he really can’t, Davos knows this firsthand, although to be fair, Stannis’ heart hadn’t been in it at the time), he certainly lives in a world that expects him to. So to speak.  
  
If he says he’s marrying for love, Davos doesn’t believe him, and Davos thinks Stannis doesn’t believe himself either. But he’s not entirely sure what Stannis’ understanding of love is, or marriage, for that matter.  
  
That Stannis’ idea of them differs so much from Davos’ for Davos to be unable to truly wrap his head around it, well, it actually saddens him.  
  
Love and marriage, if Stannis’ll think to ask him -- and he hasn’t, at least not directly, and not to Davos’ remembrance -- is actually wanting to go home and spend time with his wife and his seven sons. He wants to talk to Marya, and he wants Marya to talk to him. He wants to earn her trust, and to keep it.  
  
He figures that the same could be said of his love for Stannis too. They’ve been friends twenty years after all, Davos thinks, and the man can be a bit of an ass. Hell, he can be a huge ass, and what’s more infuriating about him is that he doesn’t apologize for being an ass. He just is.  
  
It’s the way he thinks. And Davos understands that, and accepts it, in the same way he’s understood and accepted that Marya hogs the blankets, or that she can get really sensitive about the smallest details, or that she worries, sometimes unnecessarily, and she’s never had to apologize for any of that either.  
  
They’re both in their forties -- well, Davos is, but _Whatever, Stannis’ll be forty soon too_ \-- and he’s thought about it, asking Stannis what he wants to do eventually, or if he’ll live through fifty, sixty, seventy, without children, without a wife. He can’t imagine that for himself, without Marya and their kids.  
  
Once or twice, he’d caught Stannis watching him as he carried one of his boys, an odd look on his face that Davos couldn’t quite put a name to. Then the moment passed, and Davos never thought to bring it up again.  
  
It saddens him.  
  
That, Davos figures much later, is what staggers the fight, and, begrudgingly, ends it all together.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Stannis gives him a look. “Okay what?”  
  
“Okay you’re getting married.”  
  
Stannis is quiet for a moment. Eventually, he nods, as if coming to a decision just then as well. “Okay.”  
  
Davos nods too, with considerable less certainty than Stannis. “Okay.”  
  
Then he raises his bottle, clinks it with Stannis’ and takes a long, long drink.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
How, exactly, their friendship turned into a friendship, Davos isn’t sure.  
  
What Davos does remember is owing someone really big money for having fucked up a job that was supposed to go swimmingly. (Bounced cheque, Davos a bit distracted at the time to double-check the signature, etc, boring details that he’d been forced to recount to Stannis eventually.)  
  
“So how much is it?” Stannis asked, sat on the floor with a stack of books near his folded knees, and sheets of paper organized in some way that Davos had stopped trying to rationalize. The pencil in his hand taps some rhythm on the floorboards.  
  
“A lot.”  
  
Stannis grunted. “Quantify it.”  
  
“About...” Davos made a show of calculating the figures in his head when he’d known full-well, for the last three weeks. “Maybeafewthousand,” he muttered.  
  
Stannis caught it anyway. “Quantify it _some more_.”  
  
“What are you studying anyway?”  
  
Stannis threw him a look and Davos eventually relented, but not without effort.  
  
He grimaced, sitting up from where he’d been sprawled on Stannis’ bed. “Three thousand.”  
  
“Dollars?”  
  
Davos threw Stannis’ look back at him with just as much non-amusement. “No, Republican credits.”  
  
He didn’t expect Stannis to catch the reference and sure enough, Stannis didn’t. (“You haven’t seen Star Wars? At all? You’re kidding.” - “No.” - “Oh. Well. Woulda been a nice punchline in any case.”) He just resumed the tapping of his pencil, looked down at his papers, shuffling them about, and for all intents and appearances, looked like he didn’t give a damn.  
  
“It’s a lot of money,” Davos added.  
  
“Yeah, the zeroes agree with you.”  
  
“You don’t know anyone who needs a hand with anything, do you?”  
  
He watched as Stannis’ tapping staggers, then stopped, a queer look brushing his face that from Davos’ vantage point didn’t look like much more than a slight hitch in his thinking process. But his shoulders stiffened, and his hands froze on the floor.  
  
“Hey, man, it’d be a great help if y--”  
  
“What services, exactly are yo--”  
  
There was something about Stannis’ tone that didn’t sound exactly right. It took a while for it to kick in and Davos, immediately, held up his hands, disgust on his face. “Hey. No. No, not like that. Whoah, don’t even go there.”  
  
Stannis gave a mild snort, and when he ducked his head back down Davos liked to think that he’d startled a smile out of the other guy. But it could only be a trick of the light.  
  
Tentatively, Davos had to ask. “Why did you even jump to that conclusion?”  
  
Stannis shifted from where he was sat on the floor, his knees giving a slight twitch. He kept his head down. “Valid question.”  
  
“Yeah, but, there are more polite and rather popular ‘services’ than the one you just--”  
  
“Shut up,” Stannis snapped, but he didn’t really sound angry.  
  
Even then, Davos did shut up, and after a short while, Stannis went back to his work.  
  
Davos watched him try and read, and write, and flip a page or two, but a minute passed and Stannis sighed, giving up.  
  
“Question still stands,” Stannis said, rubbing at his eyes.  
  
“Well, I dunno,” Davos shrugged. He averted his eyes, swept a look around at the room that he’d been to several times already. Blank walls that were still blank, desk that was still neat, a room that still lacked the potted plant he’d offered to provide. “Someone to tidy up?”  
  
“What?” Stannis looked up briefly. “Tidy up?”  
  
Davos shook out a laugh from somewhere, half-heartedly. “No, no, it’s just that... This place is so tidy. Great job.”  
  
“Which means I don’t need a maid.”  
  
“Which means,” Davos shot back, “That you’d make a great maid.”  
  
“Get to the fucking point already,” Stannis said without heat. He tossed his pencil on the floor, and leaned back on his hands, giving Davos his full attention.  
  
Davos cleared his throat. _Well that makes me way more comfortable talking about my problems._ The eyes were heavy on him, watching his every move, and in turn Davos looked down, and around, and stalled, but eventually, he steeled himself and looked at Stannis with all the professionalism and seriousness with which he used on his clients.  
  
“Manual labor, you know, need anyone to drive anyone around, fix the plumbing,” Davos shrugged. “Whatever. Shit like that, I guess.”  
  
“You’d be willing to do... ‘shit like that’?”  
  
“Yeah, sure, desperate people don’t get to choose, right?”  
  
Stannis sighed. “You could allow yourself some more dignity.”  
  
Davos stiffened. He felt the barb rather sharply, and as much as he liked to think that he didn’t let other people’s insults get to him, a few would sometimes slip through his watch and catch him anyway. “What exactly do you mean by that?”  
  
Stannis didn’t look remotely alarmed or apologetic, even though Davos was rather clearly offended. If the sudden rise of his pitch was anything to go by.  
  
“Get a more stable job is what I’m saying,” Stannis said, with neither arrogance nor condescension to it. Just a straightforward statement that sounded so easy, when said in such a way, that Davos was not reassured by it at all. If anything, he was offended even more.  
  
“Hey, not everyone can wave around a diploma, okay?”  
  
Stannis clenched his teeth. “That’s not what I meant.”  
  
Davos huffed a bitter laugh. “Not what you meant but that’s what it is. View from the top’s a bit panoramic but it’s not exactly accurate.”  
  
Stannis’ face shuttered, hardened, and whatever semblance of warmth there had been between them in the last few times Davos had visited was suddenly gone.  
  
He expected Stannis to kick him out. Again. Several hours earlier than scheduled, considering the noise coming in from the hallway, in spite of the relatively sturdy walls.  
  
The party was still ongoing, which meant that it was somewhere between 8PM and 3AM. (He could check the clock by the bedside table, but that meant backing down first. And he shouldn’t be the one backing down, God damn it. He wasn’t the one being an asshole.)  
  
But a minute passed, and so did Davos’ anger, but Stannis remained sat on the floor. He looked like he’d resumed studying, papers in hand, head bowed.  
  
The silence was deafening.  
  
“So that’s it?”  
  
“What’s ‘it’?” asked Stannis in a low murmur, sounding distracted by whatever he was reading.  
  
He was offended, so Stannis should apologize. Simple as that. Davos apologized when he offended someone, and people apologized to him when they offended him. That was the give and take of courtesy and manners, things that Davos expected a kid who could afford Columbia fucking University would have in spades.  
  
Stannis threw him an annoyed look when Davos didn’t reply right away. “Well?”  
  
Davos gaped. “Unbelievable.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
In all fairness, Stannis did look genuinely confused--as well as genuinely unaffected by Davos’ ire either way, which Davos chose to ignore. If he weren’t currently nursing his wounds, he would’ve answered properly.  
  
“You’re an asshole.”  
  
 _That_ got a reaction--not the one Davos was hoping for but it was, at the very least, a crack in Stannis’ infuriating indifference.  
  
Stannis looked somewhat offended himself, but that was unfair, Davos thought. _Stannis_ was the one offending _him_.  
  
Davos tried not to sputter, he really did. “I was _offended_.”  
  
Stannis’ brow furrowed. “By?”  
  
“By what you said.”  
  
“What _about_ what I said?”  
  
“The one about getting a _decent job_ \--” Davos sighed.

What was the point of confrontation when the other party didn’t even know what the fuck Davos was going on about? Stannis was either incredibly dense or just incredibly insensitive. Both, maybe, if Davos thought to be mean-spirited about it.  
  
“You know what, never mind.” He grabbed his jacket, made sure his keys and his wallet were in his pockets, and stood up, heading for the door.  
  
“Where are you going?” Stannis called out after him.  
  
“I’m fuckin’ gone,” Davos shot over his shoulder, voice fringed rough and angry.  
  
“It’s almost 4AM,” Stannis said simply, as if it was the only weapon he needed against Davos’ ire. True enough, it was.  
  
 _Ah_. So that was the time.  
  
Davos’ pace slowed just as he reached the door. His hand had already twisted the doorknob. He really didn’t want to get shanked in a back alley somewhere.  
  
Seven years living in New York might have hardened his resolve a little bit but it didn’t necessarily mean that he went out of his way to court trouble, especially when Brooklyn wasn’t exactly a skip away from Broadway. Took an hour and a half, with several-minute walks between bus rides.  
  
This late on a Saturday night, he wouldn’t exactly be sharing the subway with a bunch of workaholics going home at an ungodly hour.  
  
“But yeah okay,” Stannis then continued on to say. “You can take care of yourself.”  
  
“Ass,” Davos muttered under his breath, and before he could find out if Stannis heard him or not, he was already out the door. It clicked shut behind him. (Albeit a lot less dramatically than was ideal, as the sound was almost immediately overwhelmed by the noise in the hallway.)  
  
He didn’t get mugged, which was really fucking great, all things considered, but he did have a note tacked on his apartment door when he came back.  
  
 _Pay up._  
  
Davos’ breath caught in his throat, and he tried his very best not to break the key in his hurry to open the door. He ripped the note on his way in, and double-, triple-bolted the locks once he’d stepped inside. Didn’t even flinch when the doorjamb clipped him on the elbow.  
  
He opened the lights. Okay. No tables overturned, or his friends’ dead bodies on the floor. He sighed with relief.  
  
“Shit,” he chuckled shakily to himself, crumpling the note in his hand and tossing it aside next to the pile of shoes by the door.  
  
 _Grown man like me_ , he thought snidely, _afraid of bullies_. But as much as he wanted to bolster courage from nowhere, he also happened to know the type of people he was up against. They weren’t so much as gangsters as they were... persuasive... businessmen, whose charms were heavily hinged on the fact that they had an arsenal at the lower basement of their facility. They took care of their investments, and took care of them well, and Davos, unfortunately, was currently a loss of profit.  
  
Come to think of it, three thousand dollars in the grand scheme of things wasn’t much. Hell, it was probably just loose change for people who raked in money in the hundreds of thousands but they were nothing if not professional. And professionalism called for protocol. Davos doubted he could pay his debt in tears, as much as Davos really really wanted a good cry right now.  
  
His roommates were asleep in their respective corners. Dark lumps underneath their blankets in the dim light. Davos settled into the fold-out couch. (As the perceived ‘breadwinner’ of their little group, he had the honor of not sleeping on a cot.)  
  
He stayed awake for a while, looking up at the darkness, and when he blinked it was already morning.  
  
Someone was pounding on the door.  
  
Feeling grimy and a bit ripe for sleeping in clothes he’d been wearing for more than twenty-four hours, he pushed himself off the couch.  
  
The pounding continued.  
  
Thoughtless in his semi-sentient state, he began to shout: “Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck--” then broke off immediately when, in a sudden stab of panic, remembered that he had a debt to pay.  
  
Davos bolted upright, only to stumble onto the floor with his legs tangled in his blanket.  
  
 _Calm down, Seaworth, Jesus Christ. It’s probably no--_  
  
The pounding got progressively louder. “Seaworth, you in there?” someone hollered from the hallway.  
  
 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._  
  
His heart thundered in his chest. Sweat broke out on his forehead.  
  
Gingerly, he eased himself on his feet. He fixed his shirt, however wrinkled it was, and sticky he felt underneath it. _What the fuck am I doing, they won’t care if I don’t look pretty._ Come to think of it, this might be the prettiest he’d look in months.  
  
He made his way to the door, trying to even his breathing in the short time it took. He kept the chain when he finally opened it.  
  
“Seaworth.”  
  
Davos’ voice shook, “Ye--” only to drop drastically, in flat bemusement, as he made out the face on the other side. “--ah.”  
  
But fuck, was he relieved.  
  
“Stannis,” he greeted, momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be upset with the guy and instead only succeeded in making it sound like Stannis was Jesus Christ himself, come again from the grave to save him from his sins.  
  
Stannis frowned, shifting on his feet, and the illusion shattered. “Yeah. You okay?”  
  
Davos grunted, then closed the door in Stannis’ face. He allowed a second -- okay, maybe _several_ seconds -- to take his sweet time in unlocking the chain before opening the door again to let him through.  
  
“The fuck are you doing here?” Davos had to ask, and when Stannis didn’t move from where he stood, Davos pushed the door open even further. He even made a little bow, much to Stannis’ annoyance. “Do come in. How may I help you?”  
  
“Shut up,” said Stannis, but he entered anyway.  
  
Davos laughed, and closed the door with an abruptness that didn’t bother to be polite. The slam against the doorframe clapped louder than Davos’ hollow laughter.  
  
He’d just had a near death experience, or as near to a near death experience as he’d ever neared. He wasn’t in the mood for Stannis at the moment.  
  
“How did you even know my address?”  
  
Stannis shrugged, his hands buried in his jacket pockets. “Driver’s license.”  
  
Davos’ eyebrows flew upwards in surprise. “That was months ago.”  
  
“If you _had_ turned out to be a wanted criminal, your address would’ve been valuable information.”  
  
Davos laughed again. It was the only way to go about it. Otherwise he might tear his hair out. “Wow, you’re really...” he shook his head at himself. “... really something, aren’t you.”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“Sorry,” said Davos, and unlike Stannis, he meant it in apology. “Just had a rough night.”  
  
Stannis frowned, and there was no mistaking the concern that softened the guy’s eyes somewhat. Somewhat. “What happened?”  
  
Davos waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter.” He cleared his throat and gestured for Stannis to take a seat.  
  
A pathetic kitchen nook separated his apartment’s grandiose reception area from the equally grandiose bedroom. Three unstable chairs around a circular table that had seen better days. Its paint flaked at the edges, baring the old wood underneath. An old refrigerator next to a rusty kitchen sink against one wall, opposite a bulky Sony that stopped working months ago, when Salladhor had convinced Davos that he could hook it up to the neighbor’s cable subscription. (He lied.)  
  
The halted movement of Stannis’ feet was, at the very least, polite in restraining their obviousness. Guy didn’t look like he belonged in Davos’ apartment. And Davos’ apartment didn’t look like it even remotely cared about welcoming Stannis with as much _amiability_ as Davos had.  
  
He was wearing plain clothes, not so dissimilar from Davos’ own. Jeans, a button-down shirt, and a light blue Members Only jacket that, if Davos didn’t have basic knowledge of clothing and how to launder them, Davos would’ve thought that it too had been pressed and ironed and starched. Stiff like the shoulders it sat on.  
  
The only difference, Davos guessed, was the fact that his clothes, however plain, hadn’t been bought from the Salvation Army.  
  
Guy still looked like a professor in spite of it too, and Davos hid a smile with a cough.  
  
By the time Stannis finally folded his tall form onto the chair, legs tucked underneath the table, Davos had his arms folded across his chest. He had leaned back against the far wall. Never mind that this was his apartment and that he could lean wherever he damn well pleased, but if Stannis pulled another comment like he did earlier that morning, Davos didn’t want to accidentally break Stannis’ nose with his fist on impulse.  
  
He was better than that. Or so he told himself.  
  
“Look--” said Davos, at the same time that Stannis opened his mouth.  
  
They both stopped, glanced at each other, and before Stannis could give him a look of frustration that would’ve annoyed Davos more than he already was, Davos gave a dry chuckle and lifted a shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, go ahead,” he told Stannis.  
  
Stannis cleared his throat. “Right, well, I came here to...”  
  
“Apologize?”  
  
“What? No,” Stannis shook his head, as if the idea hadn’t even occurred to him simply because it was so beyond the realm of the physical that it didn’t even _exist_.  
  
Davos’ hand clenched tightly around his forearm. “Then _what?_ ”  
  
“Well if you’d let me _finish_ ,” Stannis’ voice rose.  
  
At the sound, Davos stopped short. Stannis was a prickly guy, sure, Davos got that impression off the bat, but he’d never seen him, well, angry.  
  
 _Was_ he angry?  
  
Stannis’ nostrils flared slightly, his eyes slanted just so from under his knit brow that Davos couldn’t tell if Stannis was trying to murder him with a look or if he was picking out patterns in the dust motes floating in the air.  
  
Davos backed down. “Fine.”  
  
“Thanks,” Stannis gritted out. His expression lightened a fraction. He looked less thunderous but still rather put-upon, like a child obligated to do some goodwill as commanded by a very persuasive parent. “Did you still need the money?”  
  
Wary, Davos narrowed his eyes. “It’s not like I found the pot of gold at the end of a rainbo--”  
  
“It’s a yes or no question.”  
  
Davos bit back a curse, and plastered on a stiff smile that, by Stannis’ unchanging expression, didn’t seem to faze the other guy at all.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then I have a proposal,” said Stannis.  
  
Davos gave a rough shake of his head, to go with the rough side of his pride. “I don’t want your money.”  
  
Stannis scoffed. “I’m not _giving_ you money.”  
  
“Then what?” Davos thought little of himself at the moment when he realized that he wanted to cry out of frustration. Like a toddler who couldn’t fit the circle in the square slot, when he just wanted to the world to make some Goddamn sense. “For God’s sake _what?_ ”  
  
Stannis blinked at him. “Are you sure you’re alright?”  
  
“No,” Davos blurted out before he could stop himself. For half a second he had the grace to feel surprised, then thought, _Fuck it_. “No, I’m not. And if you’re not going to be any _Goddamn_ help--”  
  
“Well if you’d just--”  
  
Davos dragged in a breath that didn’t calm him at all. He felt a headache forming at his temples. “Fine,” he clenched his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. _I’m sorry_.”  
  
“I’m going back to Rhode Island over the holidays and I want to hire you to...” he faltered, then, but shouldered on, albeit with some uncertainty stilting his words. “...there’s a yacht, and I’m the only one who can sail it properly nowadays, and I can’t do it alone.”  
  
“You want to hire me? To sail?” Davos frowned. “I don’t know how to sail.” He’d never even seen a yacht up close, let alone operated one. Drove one? He didn’t even know the proper term for it.  
  
Stannis didn’t seem concerned by that. “I’d thought you wouldn’t,” he muttered, not lowly enough that Davos would’ve missed it.  “But it doesn’t matter. I just can’t sail by myself.”  
  
“So I’ll be your... minder? Nanny?”  
  
Stannis grimaced. “I wouldn’t put it so crudely.”  
  
“But that’s what I will be. Effectively. Your nanny.”  
  
Stannis sighed, rough and raw. “If you don’t want the job then--”  
  
“How long is it for?”  
  
“The what, the trip?”  
  
“Yeah, the...” Davos fumbled for the right word for it. “The... thing. The sailing thing.”  
  
“A day. Maybe two, if the weather’s alright for a second go.”  
  
“Let me get this straight.” Davos cleared his throat, then pushed himself off the wall. “You’re going to pay me three fucking thousand dollars to go sailing with you. For a day.”  
  
“... Or two,” Stannis shrugged.  
  
“That’s ridiculous.”  
  
Stannis huffed, the closest to a laugh that Davos had heard from him. Even then, it wasn’t completely out of mirth. It actually sounded a bit sardonic. “You really have never sailed before.”  
  
“Not even once, no.”  
  
“Well, it’s not that easy,” answered Stannis, and was that arrogance Davos saw in the slight jut of his chin? He couldn’t exactly tell.  
  
Not that Davos was complaining. Three thousand dollars, his problem solved, in exchange for a day ( _or two, fine_ , he added) out sailing in Rhode Island. Well, shit.  
  
“I could kiss you,” Davos said.  
  
Stannis leaned back in his seat, adding the smallest bit of distance between them out of instinct. “I’d rather you didn’t.”  
  
“I didn’t say I was going to,” Davos said, but he was already smiling. It was as if a great weight had lifted off his chest. “But I could.”  
  
There was the barest tick in Stannis’ right eye. “Well, don’t.”  
  
“Nah, I won’t, I won’t,” Davos laughed.  
  
“Right,” Stannis nodded, relief visibly easing the discomfort that was no doubt winched between his molars. “Good.”  
  
Then, mischievously, out of sheer exhilaration that he didn’t have to get his already plain-looking face bashed in with a baseball bat after all, Davos added, “...But I could.”  
  
“Fuck off.” If Stannis was smiling too, well, Davos was in too good of a mood to use it against him. Davos doubted that anyone would’ve taken note of the slight curve on Stannis’ lips as the smile that it was supposed to be, anyway.  
  
“You’re still an ass, by the way.” Just in case Stannis had forgotten.  
  
Stannis’ jaw tightened. “We’d already established that.”  
  
 _Fuckin’ grinch has a heart after all_ , he mused with a shake of his head, the laugh tapering out to a grin that lingered for a while longer, even when the quiet resettled around them. Somehow, it seemed less oppressive than before.  
  
Davos started, then clapped his hands. His adrenaline was up, his mood was up. He felt none of the exhaustion of having spent an hour last night avoiding the easier routes back to Brooklyn--in favor of, well, avoiding death. But he did feel the hunger.  
  
“So. I’m fuckin’ starving. Breakfast?”  
  
Stannis hesitated, and Davos caught it just in time.  
  
“Coffee?” Davos tried again.  
  
“Please,” Stannis said, almost gratefully, and with the breath that rushed the word from his lips before he could stop himself, his shoulders sank. His elbows landed, albeit gingerly, on the tabletop. (The table groaned a bit, creaked a bit, and Stannis briefly checked underneath to make sure he hadn’t accidentally broken it with his weight--even though, Davos hazarded a guess, that in spite of his height, Davos easily packed a bit more mass.)  
  
“Did you spend the whole night studying?” Davos asked as he went to the kitchen. Which wasn’t saying much, considering that if he’d been talking about floor space then technically, he was already in  the kitchen, and he’d still be in the kitchen even if he went as far as the front door.  
  
“Hmm?” Stannis glanced at him. He had his chin anchored on one hand, his eyelids drooping slightly. “No.”  
  
“Drinking?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Davos looked over his shoulder as he crouched down to reach the pots and pans Salla chucked in the cabinet under the sink the night before. “Do you even drink?”  
  
As far as he knew, he was Beta Theta Pi’s only ‘contractor’ for liquor. It came in handy, having the drinking age set so high that teenagers needed to resort to people like him.  
  
They trusted him so much that they called him in for every beer run they needed--averaging around once, or twice a month. The usual order: ten cases of Budweiser, ten cases of Heineken. When the mood struck, they’d ask for a couple of of Johnnie Walker.  
  
If they had prospects to impress during the rush, then the orders would double, or triple throughout the semester. At parties, the orders would reach tenfold. For a very special price, he could even pinch weed from Salla’s contacts.  
  
Suffice to say, he was around a lot, and if Stannis’ building across from the Beta frat house ever threw parties on any of the floors, then Davos would know. That was his turf after all. Not to mention that sound carried really well along Broadway, with the buildings looming so closely to each other that standing along the sidewalk was like being in the shade of a tall, urban tree with a brick-laden canopies.  
  
In all the parties he’d been called for -- during all of which he’d lingered around for a bit, drinking off kegs he filled up himself -- he never saw Stannis at the party. Within the vicinity, yes, but not with a bottle of beer, or anything that had the same effect. He didn’t see much of Stannis, really, except when he barged into Stannis’ room -- after knocking, that is -- sometime around midnight.  
  
“Drink what, beer?” Stannis asked, startling Davos from his thoughts.  
  
The pans rattled when his hand, jerking in surprise, jostled something loose from the precarious pile that was no doubt hiding in the shadows, well out of mind by the three flatmates that cared only about nudging the mess aside to clear a path on the floor.  
  
“Yeah,” Davos shrugged, grabbed the something that felt the most like a pan, and straightened himself up. “Anything, really.”  
  
Stannis gave a mild snort. “My brother drinks enough for the both of us. Besides, I’m not legal.”  
  
Davos could’ve whirled around if he’d had the flexibility for it. But the sudden snapping of his head sideways -- with his eyes widening in surprise, eyebrows raised -- was just sharp enough to crack a sleep-lame joint or two in his neck.  
  
He took a long look at Stannis, aware that Stannis might actually sense his gaze, but never mind, his head was turned away, and his eyes were partway closed.  
  
Davos seized the opportunity to study the other guy a bit more. Tousled hair, roughly like Davos’, a stern, unfriendly line of thin lips that reminded Davos of an uncle who’d turned grimmer by the year until he died eventually of pneumonia. He was young, yeah, but he didn’t realize Stannis was that young.  
  
“Wait, driving-legal, consensual sex-legal, or drinking-legal?”  
  
Stannis huffed, eyes opening briefly before drooping again. “Drinking-legal.”  
  
Somewhere between 18 and 21, then. That wasn’t too bad, and he gave himself a mental pat on the back for not being too off-mark (22).  
  
“You actually look like you’re drinking-legal,” Davos mused. He put the pan on the stove, clicked the fire on, and let the pan heat for a bit as he busied himself with the coffee pot by the sink.  
  
It was dirty.  
  
Nose wrinkling slightly in disgust, he opened the tap, dumped the leftovers in a graceless spill, and washed it as quickly as he could. In that he poured some water in, sloshed the water about, and repeated the process until the glass somehow regained its natural opacity.  
  
“Yeah,” replied Stannis with an indifference that meant he either didn’t care for Davos’ opinion or he was half-asleep.  
  
Davos glanced at him in time to catch Stannis’ head tip forward, and his chin fell from his palm. He jerked awake, then immediately reddened when he saw Davos’ amused grin.  
  
Stannis shifted in his seat, straightened his shoulders, and tried his damn hardest to look like he hadn’t just nearly slammed his head on the desk.  
  
“Coffee.”  
  
“Hold on, would ya,” said Davos, not even bothering to dry the pot before he stuck it in the machine, poured an estimated amount of coffee in the dispenser, and switched it on.  
  
“You don’t have to be nice to me just because I’m hel--doing what I’m doing.”  
  
Davos had gone to the fridge. “Nice?” he asked, perplexed, as he grabbed a couple of eggs from the tray on the fridge door. He nudged it closed with his elbow. Did it again, when the door just bounced open again. “Gotta fix the rubber on that thing,” he told himself, before going back to the pan.  
  
“Nice? I’m not being nice.”  
  
Stannis didn’t seem convinced. “Then what are you doing?”  
  
“I dunno.” Davos cracked the eggs on the pan. It sizzled, and the column of smoke pricked his eyes. He rubbed at them as he shrugged at Stannis. “Making breakfast?”  
  
“You always make breakfast for other people?”  
  
“Yeah,” Davos smiled through the fog in his eyes, then searched the countertop for the flipper that was supposed to be there. Finding none, he opened a drawer and grabbed a fork. “I live with two other people, so...” Waved the fork in the air dismissively. “I guess I’ve acquired some skills.”  
  
“... Girlfriend?” Stannis asked, with some uncertainty.  
  
“Ha, yeah sure,” Davos chuckled at the notion. He barely had the money for himself, let alone a girlfriend. Call him traditional but he really didn’t want to live off of anyone’s money but his own, and if he had a girl, well, he wasn’t going to be a burden for her either. “ _Girlfriend_. Nah, coupla friends.” He added a beat later, “ _Dude_ friends.”  
  
He poked at the eggs’ edges with his fork, careful not to break the yolk.  
  
“What about you?” he looked back at Stannis. “Girlfriend somewhere? Back home? Columbia?”  
  
Stannis gave a snort in the same spirit as Davos’ answer. Davos smiled at him. Finally, something in common with the guy. He expected Stannis to smile back. It was somewhat reassuring, personally, to know that he was on the same boat as someone else, but Stannis didn’t respond in kind.  
  
“Yeah, single’s the way to go, I guess. ‘Specially in New York, right?”  
  
“Guess so, yeah.”  
  
 _Off-limits, then_ , Davos thought, gauging the guy’s mood.  
  
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Stannis added a beat later.  
  
Davos blinked. _Right_ , and went back to his eggs. “Sorry.”  
  
“Can you stop saying that?”  
  
Davos looked up again, alarmed. _What did I do this time?_  
  
Stannis tried to explain, gesturing somewhat feebly with a hand that wasn’t feeling quite up to the task. In spite of his rude awakening earlier, the guy still looked half-asleep in his chair. “Stop apologizing all the time.”  
  
“... Sorry?”  
  
Stannis threw him a look, and Davos smiled.  
  
“Force of habit.”  
  
“Filthy habit.”  
  
“They say the same about smoking.”  
  
“Well they’re right about that too.”  
  
Davos gave a startled laugh as he turned off the stove and unceremoniously dumped the fried eggs on a plate. “Are you seriously comparing apologies to cigarettes?”  
  
“No,” answered Stannis, leaning back a little to make room as Davos set the plate down on the table. “It’s the principle of the thing.”  
  
“Apologies aren’t as cancerous,” Davos cared to point out, taking the coffee pot from the machine and setting that down on the table too.  
  
“But they’re just as annoying.”  
  
Well, that explained the guy’s non-existent sense of remorse.  
  
“Are they?”  
  
Stannis nodded, but already seemed slightly distracted by the smell of the coffee right in front of him. “D’you have--”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Davos set down a couple of mugs too, but not before checking to see if they were clean. They _looked_ clean, at least. “Here.”  
  
Immediately, Stannis poured for himself.  
  
“Okay, don’t be shy,” Davos said wryly, and was about to take the seat across from Stannis before he remembered the bread.  
  
He found it in the small cupboard above the sink. The loaf was at least a couple of days old, and when he checked for mold, he found none. _Whatever, bread’s bread_. He put it down on the table before finally sitting.  
  
“You hungry?”  
  
Stannis shook his head, and took a sip from his mug. The steam scattered as he exhaled through his nose.  
  
“Oh shit sorry, forgot the sugar. Er, and the cream. Did you want--”  
  
“This is fine.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
They made quick work of their little feast, not that it took much effort or time. Bread and eggs weren’t exactly complicated dishes. Between them, they’d finished the pot of coffee too, and Davos already had a second pot brewing when he excused himself to finally change his clothes.  
  
He pulled on one of his old Hoboken High sweatshirts, _Red Wings_ in faded block letters slapped on his front. _Need to do the laundry_ , he added to the list in his head, and quickly pulled on a pair of jeans he could’ve sworn he’d already chucked in the dirty clothes bin the day before.  
  
When he came back out of the bathroom, clean-shaven and more clear-eyed than he’d been after his coffee, he found Stannis standing by the window. It wasn’t much of a view. His apartment was on the fourth floor, on the west side of the building.  
  
The most compelling thing Stannis could probably see was the building across the street and it was no Flatiron.  
  
“Sorry for the mess,” Davos said, then caught himself. “Right, sorry for the sorry,” he rolled his eyes and went about fixing the fold-out sofa, sloppily gathering his blanket in a loose roll over his arm, and piling them on one of two pitiful-- _but comfortable, thanks_ \--armchairs.  
  
“It’s fine,” Stannis said rather softly that Davos could’ve easily chalked up the noise to the sound of the morning’s rush hour filtering in from outside.  
  
“So,” Davos broke the silence. “Rhode Island, huh?”  
  
Stannis nodded, and Davos had to peer up from the pillow wedged underneath his chin and his collarbone to see the gesture. He pulled the pillow case in place.  
  
“Lemme guess-- _Newport?_ ”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Davos threw the pillow on top of the blanket, then bent forward to dust off the thin mattress. “Wow,“ he said, irony lacing his tone. Then he lifted one edge of the pull out and the sofa went back to being a sofa. A lumpy sofa, but a more recognizable sofa.  
  
Stannis turned slightly on his feet. “Hm?”  
  
“Sounds amazing.”  
  
“What does?”  
  
“Newport. Do tell me more, man.”  
  
Confusion furrowed a groove on Stannis’ face, before it fell flatly when he picked up on Davos’ cheek. He turned his eyes back out the window. “The house is by the sea.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Stannis nodded again.  
  
“That must be nice.”  
  
“Guess so.” He cleared his throat. “And you? Didn’t think you were born here,” Stannis glanced at the rest of the apartment behind him.  
  
“No shit,” Davos said, hiding the sudden self-consciousness with a light chuckle. “Bit of a pigsty, I know, but yeah, born and raised in Hoboken.” He tugged on his sweatshirt so Stannis could read the print. “Hoboken High, fuckin’ Red Wings. Yeah, not exactly Dalton material but,” he lifted a shoulder, “Yeah.”  
  
“You played?”  
  
“Nah. This was my dad’s. He was a linebacker. I played, sure, but not actually played on the team.  Couldn’t get past the yard line without getting thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack o’ potatoes.” He grinned, remembering the not-so-flattering number of times he’d gotten himself knocked unconscious, playing with varsity players with the arrogance of someone who thought he knew what he was doing. Well, he did, he just failed at the execution part of the equation. “I‘m a pretty good pool player though, if that counts.”  
  
That not-smile appeared again, and Davos was starting to get the hang of it. When to expect it, when not to.  
  
“You come from a long line of Red Wings?” Stannis asked.  
  
Davos grinned. “Bet your ass, yeah. Fuckin’ legacy, the Seaworths.” He jabbed a playfully threatening finger in the air. “Say what you want about Hoboken, man, but it’s home.”  
  
“Seems like it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Davos said, turning wistful as his thoughts turned to the city over the river. He liked to think that if he was on the rooftop, when the sun was just right, and he squinted a little, he could see his city over the river. Maybe the docks, too, where he and the guys from school would hang out after class.  
  
When he looked back at Stannis, he found the other man watching him intently.  
  
“Why did you move out here, then?” Stannis asked.  
  
“I dunno, why do people move to New York, anyway?” Davos shrugged. “I blame _Wall Street_ , personally.”  
  
Stannis frowned. “What’s Wall Street got to do with it?”  
  
“No, the movie.” At the blank expression on Stannis’ face, Davos shook his head. “Didn’t see that one either, did you.”  
  
“I don’t think so.”  
  
“ _Have_ you seen a film? Of any kind? … At all?”  
  
Stannis scoffed. “Would be hard not to, wouldn’t it?”  
  
“Okay, name one.”  
  
Brief pause. Davos could almost hear the cogs in Stannis’ head. _Well don’t burst a vein, man_. “ _Apocalypse Now_.”  
  
Davos nodded. “Good movie.”  
  
Stannis made a noncommittal noise through lightly pursed lips. “It’s a war movie.”  
  
“... Not fond of war movies?”  
  
“Not fond of movies in general.”  
  
“Yeah,” Davos replied, drily. “I’d caught that.”  
  
“Did you,” Stannis said just as drily that Davos had to chuckle.  
  
“You haven’t even seen Star Wars. Dude, even my dad has seen Star Wars.”  
  
Stannis gave him a flat look that very clearly said he wasn’t up to doing this discussion again. Holding up his hands, Davos conceded. _Fine, fine, a fight for another day._  
  
“Hey, uh,” Davos gestured at the newly restored sofa. “Wanna sit? Sorry, forgot my manners for a sec there. Um--”  
  
“No.” Stannis turned away from the window, and gathered his jacket about him in that universal gesture easily recognized even by Davos as the gesture that preceded a quick exit.  
  
Davos was surprised that he even felt disappointed. He hoped that--well, he didn’t know what he was hoping for but he’d been crashing at Stannis’ place for the better part of the semester now and it didn’t seem right that the guy didn’t spend as much time at Davos’ place. He didn’t mind either way, but he thought, at the very least, that they were friendly enough with each other that Stannis would actually feel... comfortable... being there. If comfortable was even a word that Stannis was familiar with. He didn’t look the slightest bit comfortable in his own dorm room, let alone in someone else’s apartment.  
  
The guy ate his food, yeah, but didn’t even pause to sit down on the couch, like proper people did, exchanging small talk and stuff like that that Davos was pretty sure he’d gotten the hang of already, having needed to cosy it up to clients with small talk for more than five years now.  
  
As much as he hated being insecure about anything, he certainly felt it now. His apartment wouldn’t impress anyone. Hell, he hadn’t even brought his parents down to check it out, afraid that they’d haul him back to Hoboken if they ever saw. But he liked Stannis’ company, strangely enough, and it wasn’t that far-fetched to hope that, well, since Stannis had been tolerating his that maybe Stannis did too.  
  
The disappointment must’ve shown on his face, when Davos realized that the expression on Stannis’ softened somewhat.  
  
Davos cleared his throat, and plastered on a slight smile. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”  
  
The silence tapered off, stuttered in that mildly threatening way when Davos was beginning to sense some awkwardness rearing in.  
  
Surprisingly, Stannis was the one who breached it first. Albeit with more awkwardness than the awkwardness he’d just nearly succeeded in batting away.  
  
“I have a report to finish,” Stannis said.  
  
“No, it’s okay,” Davos insisted. He didn’t need excuses, although he had to admit that it did make him feel somewhat better. “I’ll walk you to the door,” he said, his smile warming a little. “You might get lost.”  
  
Stannis opened his mouth, about to say something, and Davos waited for it, but eventually Stannis just nodded, and headed for the door.  
  
He was already halfway out when Davos said, “Um. Hey.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Davos leaned against the doorjamb, hand on the knob. “Thanks. For helping me out. Really means a lot, man, you don’t even know.”  
  
In all likelihood, Stannis probably didn’t know, and that made Davos mean his thanks all the more.  
  
Stannis hesitated, feet scuffing the already worn floorboards along the hallway. “Yeah,” he said haltingly. “It’s not a favor. It’s a job.”  
  
“Well yeah, but still. Thanks.”  
  
“It’s not--”  
  
“Look, man, just take the gratitude for what is, alright?” Davos chuckled. “It’s not that hard.”  
  
Stannis frowned at him, clearly uncomfortable. “Okay, yeah,” he nodded. “You’re welcome.”  
  
“Oh yeah, before I forget,” Davos hurried to add, and he didn’t fail to note the slight relief that eased Stannis’ apprehension at the abrupt change of topic. “What time is it?” He checked his wrist, found it naked. “Crap. But yeah if it’s past--”  
  
Stannis had already checked his own watch. “It’s 8:05.”  
  
“Right, okay, take either the F train or the #2 train out of Brooklyn. You’d make it uptown a bit faster if you’re in a hurry.”  
  
“It’s alright, I’ll get a cab,” Stannis shrugged, and turned away.  
  
“If you can’t find any along Hicks,” Davos called out after him, “Just walk about four blocks up and you’ll find one along Atlantic.”  
  
Stannis hesitated for a fraction of a second too long to reassure Davos that Stannis even knew what the fuck he was talking about.  
  
Davos frowned. “How did you even get here?”  
  
“Took the... train.”  
  
“Which one?”  
  
“The, uh.”  
  
“The F train?”  
  
“Yeah, I think so.”  
  
“You sound so sure about that.”  
  
Stannis sighed. “I don’t know. Whichever train got me here at 4AM, that’s the one.”  
  
“... You left at 4AM?”  
  
“That’s what I said, yeah.”  
  
“ _I_ took the F train.” A pause, as Davos did the math in his head. “It only takes an hour to get here.”  
  
Stannis mumbled something under his breath.  
  
Even with Davos straining a bit to hear, already abandoning the wide-open door, he still couldn’t make it out. “What?”  
  
“I said,” Stannis huffed, “I got lost.”  
  
“And what, wandered around for _three fuckin’ hours?_ ”  
  
Stannis sniffed, rankled by Davos’ tone. “I remembered your street, but not your exact building.”  
  
“...But you still found it.”  
  
A slight widening of his arms that clearly said, ‘Obviously.’  
  
Davos blinked. “Good job.”  
  
Stannis threw him a long-suffering look before turning away, a stubborn staccato to his steps in a visible effort to gather his dignity about him.  
  
Davos smiled. “Yeah, take care, man!”  
  
Stannis waved a hand over his shoulder, then disappeared around a corner.  


 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a real update (yet), sorry! I just halved the first chapter into two chapters to even out the volume of each update. I haven't updated this in, like, a year and a half. Hopefully, my writing style has improved since then. (Even more hopefully, I'll post an actual update soon.)

  
Three weeks until Newport. He figured the people he owed could hold out until then.

They didn’t.

“Holy shit!” Salla exclaimed when he opened the door. “Did you walk into a pole or something, dude? Jesus Christ. Look at your face.”

His head certainly _felt_ like a pole, Davos wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure if he could actually form proper words, with the left side of his face purpled over and numb when someone’s fist had kissed it rather violently just fifteen minutes ago.

He’d been walking home, right along the street of their apartment building, when some guy twice his size stepped into his space and nudged him into an alley.

The first thought that came to his head was _Wow, this is so fuckin’ cliche, I bet he’s gonna knee me in the groin before he even says hi._

The thug did.

The second thought was a jumble of _Holy shit_ s, and _Fuck no_ s, made even foggier by the sheer panic of being cornered into a dark alley, behind a dumpster, and the possibility of dying such a horrible death at the hands of people who were probably paid more than what Davos owed their boss.

They had him by the arms when they finally spoke, right into his ear, mind, just in case all the blood running down his shirt collar was any indication that they’d somehow burst his eardrum.

“You really gotta pay your shit, man,” said one of them, hands tight around his arms, their breaths hot on his cheek. If he wasn’t already squinting, trying to keep his eyes open for the sheer fact that recognizing his assailants would be mighty helpful when filing his police report, at the same time that his head wanted to keep his eyes closed for convenience’s sake, he would’ve found it infinitely more useful to focus on what he was hearing.

Scuffle of shoes, the tight breathing of the guy on his right, plus the added pressure of thicker fingers around his limbs, meant that the guy wa a bit rounder, a bit stockier. Guy on the right could hardly cast a shadow over him. Definitely thinner. Shorter.

Guy in front...

He opened his eyes a bit more. Guy in front wasn’t much of a guy, but a suit. A suit in the dark that just happened to be sentient enough to be capable of speech.

_Oh my God_. A chuckle burst in his throat, then fell back down into his chest when the ache in his jaw wasn’t feeling up to it. I’m in a fuckin’ gangster flick.

“You hear me, Seaworth?” said the suit.

He was given a rough jostle about the arms, and his knees gave way. He fell hard on the concrete, his hands coming up on instinct. Not much was achieved by that, as his elbows buckled too, and he fell face first into a puddle. He sputtered blood and mud.

“Ow.”

“Yeah, ow,” echoed the suit.

Davos peered up. “You’re still here?”

“Yeah,” the suit shrugged. It stepped into the light somewhat, and Davos could almost recognize a face. Almost. Be he figured he’d be able to count the stitches on the dude’s fancy Florsheims more easily.“Gotta make sure we didn’t kill ya.”

Davos groaned. He tried to roll over, to get half his face out of the puddle, thanks very much, but a boot had somehow anchored down his lower back and kept him in that position.

“Why, bad for business?” he gritted out.

“Bad only when you don’t pay up, man, so you really should.”

“Yeah, I’m working on it.”      

“Work on it some more.”

“Fuck _off_.”

The suit had already ignored him. “Hey Chaz, check him over, will ya?”

Davos felt hands all over his back, down his shoulders. He bit back a moan when they grazed over the lump on the side of his head. He wanted to hurl.

“Yeah, he’ll live,” ‘Chaz’ said.

A minute had passed with Davos trying to steady his breathing. When he’d finally picked himself up on his elbows, he’d been alone. If not for the livid ache on his jaw, he would’ve thought that he’d dreamt all that.

Salla pushed him onto the couch. _I really need to dust this thing_ , Davos thought to himself when he suddenly had the urge to sneeze as he flopped down.

“So, what happened?” asked Salla, puttering about the kitchen for anything remotely helpful.

_We should really get a first aid kit_ , Davos thought again, already creating a list in his head. He’d tried distracting himself from the pain on his face by counting the number of cement blocks from the alley to the building. When that failed, he counted the stairs.

Now was probably a good time as any to make a grocery list.

“Dude.” Salla nudged his foot.

Davos groaned. His head had fallen far back that if he opened his eyes, he’d only see the ceiling. But he didn’t want to do that right now. Anything that wasn’t darkness was going to violently force the nausea from where it was currently being held down, far away from Davos’ happy place.

“You need to go to the hospital or something?”

“I really hope not,” Davos mumbled. His lips felt like cotton.

“... Can you swallow?”

Davos tried to. He would’ve probably fared better if his head wasn’t tilted back. The attempt made his torso jerk upwards a little, that Davos imagined he looked somewhat like a fish trying to breathe above water.

“Holy shit, you dyin’ on me, man?”

Davos forced open an eye. The one that wasn’t currently swelling over like a mutant eyepatch. “I was trying to swallow.”

Salla let out a shaky laugh.”Yeah I knew that.”

Then the laugh promptly fell and, without warning, Rude fucker, Salla backhanded him on the chest. Not much of a backhand, as backhands went, but it was enough for Salla to express his ire.

“What did you do this time?”

“What I didn’t do was ‘pay up.’”

“Thought you were onto that already.”

“Onto it is right, yeah.”

Salla tsked, and wandered off towards the kitchen again. “Whiskey or scotch?”

“Why?”

“Whiskey. Or scotch.”

Davos didn’t care. “Scotch,” he said anyway. If Salla was going through yesterday’s beer run (for tonight’s frat party), then better the scotch than the whiskey.

Davos heard footsteps. From behind closed eyes, he felt Salla’s shadow looming over him, blocking the light.

“Keep your eyes shut.”

“Why.”

Then Salla pinched his nose closed--which still hurt, thanks very fuckin’ much--and dumped what felt like a ton of liquor down his face.

He screamed, and got himself a mouthful of scotch in the process. He sputtered murder and _Really fuckin’ expensive scotch, Sal, what the fuck!_ both.

“Dude, calm down, fuck, neighbors might think I’m fuckin murdering you in here!”

Davos pushed him roughly away. His whole head was on fire that Davos actually wanted to have another run-in with the thugs again just so he could numb everything over.

“Ngh,” he said, putting his pain so eloquently, as he pulled up the collar of his shirt and tried to wipe off as much of the alcohol as he could. “What the fuck was that for?” he demanded, in what he hoped to be a tone of the utmost urgency and outrage when really it just came out as a mangled slur through his uncooperative lips. His eyes may have flared a little though,. that Salla actually did back off and put some bare distance between them.

“Alcohol’s an antiseptic,” Salla said, plopping down on the couch next to Davos. He was already helping himself to a gulp--or two--by the time Davos could see clearly enough to look at him. “I just saved your life.” Salla raised the bottle in mock-toast. “You’re welcome.”

“D’you know how much that costs?”

Salla shrugged. Took another gulp to show just how much he cared about that, and handed the bottle over.

Davos sighed, and took it. He gingerly tipped the bottle back, took a long, deep, swallow, and sighed again when the hot trail down his throat reassured him that he nothing was actually broken. No pain around his torso, no irregularity in his breathing. Just a lump of bruise-hardened skin on his face.

“How do I look?”

“Like a fuckin’ prince, man, now go get your glass slippers, you’re supposed to be in Columbia by now.”

Davos blinked. “Shit.”

“Yeah you look like it too,” Salla agreed with a grin that didn’t even attempt to hide itself.

Davos groaned and fell back onto the sofa. He grimaced when his shirt stuck to his back, and to his front. The bleeding had probably stopped now. At least he hoped it did. Else the trickling down the back of his neck would make a much more interesting stain.

“You doin’ anything tonight?” he asked, handing Salla the bottle.

Salla took it, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “No.”

“You shoulda said yes.”

“Yeah,” Salla grunted, wiping his mouth after a swig. “Where’s the delivery?”

“The regulars at Columbia.”

“Which regulars at Columbia?”

“Beta.”

Salla gave a murmur of recognition. “Yeah, those guys are easy. How’re you getting all that up there?”

He meant the cases and kegs stacked by the kitchen. Once a week, their apartment looked like a warehouse that happened to have a stove, and a (broken) TV, and a couch.

“The kids’ll be by with a car.”

“... Do I have to drive?”

“You know how to drive.”

“Well yeah but not on Broadway. Have you seen the traffic up there?”

Davos certainly had. He’d had to ‘see’ it once a week. Minimum. And a look said as much to Salla. He knew how to solve this quickly enough that Salla’d be ready by the time the Beta guys came over.

“I’ll give you 30%.”

Salla’s tone eased, and he became much more accommodating.

Davos smiled through the pain in his jaw. Or, tried to. If anything else felt a bit fucked up, he knew Salla wouldn’t let him down. He was the best measurement for normalcy in Davos’ world. Alien invasion: Salla cared about commision. Zombie apocalypse: ditto. Judgment Day: ditto, plus interest.

“60%,” Salla fired back.

“40.”

“...55.”

“40.”

“50?”

“…40.”

Salla grumbled, then pushed himself off the couch.

Holding out his hand, Davos waited for the bottle. He could use a different sort of numbing-up right now.

“Yeah, this is mine,” Salla told him, keeping the bottle well out of reach.

“Hey, could you get me some ice for this?” Davos gestured vaguely to all of his face.

“We haven’t used the ice tray in weeks,” Salla said, already on his way to the bathroom.

It got so cold in the winter that they’d actually just leave their usual supply of beer and soda out on the fire exit. Salla once tried storing bacon out there, only to find that he’d have an army of pigeons to fight off.

Davos sighed. “Could you buy me ice then?”

“Just because you’re uglier than usual right now doesn’t mean you can’t use your legs!” Salla shouted back.

Salla was already doing his beer-running job for him. Davos could’ve pushed, used emotional blackmail, and maybe teared up a bit whilst alluding to the past few years they’d spent covering each other’s asses (more often it was Davos covering Salla’s too, golden ticket right there) but fine, Davos grumbled to himself. He wasn’t one to abuse someone else’s patience. So instead, he made his (very slow) way to the kitchen to wet one of the dish towels that had yet to be decently washed that week, opened the window to the fire exit, and tossed it onto the metal stairs. It’d be just as good as an ice pack in a few minutes.

He thought to take a nap as he waited. Rather, the nap thought of itself and caught Davos unawares that if he had had the mental faculties to protest against it, he would’ve. But everything ached and throbbed in the least pleasant way possible, and his lumpy couch was so soft against his back, that the nap, it turned out, didn’t need much by way of a decent argument.

The dream, when it came, was hazy. He dreamt of ‘Chaz’ and the Suit guy, and the two of them talking over his prone body on the concrete. He assumed he’d taken the eyes of the third guy--the skinny thug--and it was weird, seeing himself squirm in the way he imagined he’d had. _Fuckin’ graceless_ , he’d thought.

There was nothing thrilling about it at all. He doubted it would’ve even made the director’s cut of an action flick. He was just a heap of twitches and groans that sorely needed a stunt coordinator to synchronize everything to spare him from looking--and sounding--like a toy with a busted soundbyte. A toy that fell from the top of a high-rise. With a busted soundbyte.

As dreams went, this wasn’t very cathartic. Just bothersome in recounting the details that, even in sleep, made him squirm to find a more comfortable position for his aching limbs.

“Hey Chaz, check him over, will ya,” Suit told ‘Chaz’, and even from a different vantage point, Davos still couldn’t see his face. Annoying, that. What were dreams for if they couldn’t give him information he didn’t already know.

Then Chaz leant over the Davos on the ground and just as hands ran over his head, down his back, Davos became Davos, with the mudwater halfway up his nose and his face burning all over.

Hands that had searched impassively, indifferently, with the sole purpose of checking out broken bones and concussions, became gentle. Thick fingers turned thin, tentative, and when a thumb passed over the purple bruise high on his cheek, Davos groaned.

The fingers stilled, then vanished, and Davos groaned again.

For reasons that dream-Davos couldn’t fathom, lying prone on the ground like that, with his assailants hovering just overhead, he wanted those fingers back. His head twitched to the side, and instead of more mudwater flooding into his nose, trickling into his slightly gaping mouth, he felt the cold blast of the wind from the window he’d left open.

He opened his eyes.

“Seaworth.”

Davos blinked. It was dark; Salla must’ve turned the lights off when he left. _Fucker didn’t even close the window_ , he noticed next.

It wasn’t until his head lolled sideways, to glare balefully at the offending November breeze infiltrating their apartment, did he realize that the voice hadn’t been in his dream. His eyes made out a vague shadow, silhouetted by the city lights filtering in from outside, dimmed only somewhat by the dirty windowglass that _I really need to clean_ , Davos thought absently.

He blinked again.

“Stannis.”

Stannis nodded, or at least Davos thought he did. The vague silhouette did shift a little so that was probably it. He was standing by the couch, his arms loose at his sides. Davos couldn’t properly see his face but it didn’t take much of a genius to know that even though Stannis might not actually be Stannis, and that some thug was just assuming his identity, then it was a thug that Davos could probably easily take on with a proper tackle around the midriff.

He sank back into the couch.

“How did you get in here?”

“Your friend gave me a key.”

Davos frowned, then flinched when the motion stretched the muscles on his face. “Guy hands over the keys to strangers just like that,” he snorted. “It’s like he wants to get me killed.”

Stannis was quiet for a while. If not for the slight scuffling of feet, Davos would’ve chalked it up to his sleep-addled mind that he was even there.

Eventually, Stannis said, “I doubt I looked much of a threat.”

“Yeah, you really don’t,” even though Davos vaguely remembered being hauled by those skinny arms from the floor and onto a bed.

Stannis made a sound that might have been a chuckle, if it hadn’t been so quiet and, well, mangled. “Then again, he wasn’t exactly sober at the time.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Still up there. The party hasn’t ended.”

“What time is it?”

Pause, as Stannis checked his watch. “2:47.”

Davos smiled. “Didn’t get lost this time?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that against me,” Stannis replied from a little distance away.

“What are you--”

A rough slide of wood against rusty metal, a crisp bang of the window against the sill, and the breeze was gone.

“Right. Thanks.”

“Practically snowing in here,” Stannis said, sounding nearer this time.

The shadow loomed by the couch, Stannis’ hesitation noticeable even in the darkness. Eventually, Stannis seemed to make up his mind.

Davos felt Stannis’ tentative fingers touch his hand, and before his own fingers could curl around them on instinct, Stannis had already pushed the cold dishrag into his palm.

It took a second for Davos to remember what it was. It had dried up a bit, made stiff by spending way too long cooling outside. He draped it over his face and sighed, relieved. He really didn’t care at the moment that the rag smelled strongly of days-old cooking oil.

“You should’ve told me.”

With a heavy hand, Davos lifted a corner of the rag to peer up at Stannis, only to find that he’d already sat himself down on the armchair nearby. Davos felt eyes on him, and it was a more disconcerting feeling, not actually seeing the look on Stannis’ face but just knowing that he was under Stannis’ scrutiny. However much that counted for in the darkness.

“Should’ve told you what?” Davos asked, his voice sharper than he intended.

“That you needed the money already.”

“I didn’t,” Davos snapped. “Sorry, it’s just that-- it’s fine, okay? It’s my problem. And you were already helping me, so...” he trailed off, knowing there was some logic there somewhere but he couldn’t, at the moment, figure out what he was trying to say.

“When do you need it exactly?”

“I dunno,” Davos expelled a rough sigh, his hand gesturing vaguely over his head, then landed on his forehead, too tired to remain in mid-air. “I’ll do the job at Newport then that’s it. They’ll have to make do with that.”

Stannis snorted. “They won’t. And they won’t stop either, will they?”

_Probably not_ , but Davos bit his tongue. He was already going to earn the money; he could tell them that, the next time they paid a visit. Then they’ll have to settle for it, because money didn’t just appear from nowhere, _Goddamn it._

From Stannis’ general direction, there was a brief rustle of synthetic cloth and paper. Then a _whoosh_ that sounded suspiciously like something in flight. He felt the soft thud as the object landed on the sofa beside him.

Davos grasped in the dark with his other hand, and found an envelope. A thick one.

“If this is what I think it is...”

“Just take it.”

Immediately, Davos sat up. The rag fell from his face and onto his lap. “Hey, I’m gonna earn this, alright?”

“Yeah,” Stannis said, and even if he didn’t sound ironic about it at all, Davos still felt the need to insist. To convince him.

“Look,” Davos raked a hand through his hair, wincing when his palm brushed against a sore spot. “I’m getting this in three weeks’ time. After Newport. So give it to me then.”

He threw it back in Stannis’ general direction, and from the slight sound of surprise, he could guess that Stannis caught it before it hit him in the face.

“It’s an advance payment,” Stannis fired back, and threw the envelope at him.

In the dark, Davos couldn’t see where it went until he felt it thud against his chest. He felt a hollow smile curling the good side of his mouth despite himself. “You’re kinda bad at this.”

“You are too.”

“Bad at what?” He ran a thumb down the creased corner of the envelope that now sat on his lap. “Throwing things?” To prove his point, he really should throw it back. Show Stannis a thing or two about hand-eye coordination even when he couldn’t clearly see his target, or that he only had one eye in good condition at the moment.

But he really did need the money.

He hated that he did, that both sides didn’t really give him a choice on the matter. His pride had already been rented earlier that evening, now it was being roughened even more by the fact that he was, quite effectively, relying on somebody else’s charity.

“At gratitude.” Davos heard the smile even though he knew it wouldn’t even be visible. “It’s not that hard.”

“Oof,” Davos said in mock-hurt. “Right in the irony.”

“Call it poetic justice.”

Davos nodded. “Oof,” he said again, his smile widening. “Right in the poetic justice.”

Springs creaked as Stannis shifted in the armchair. In discomfort, perhaps, or to settle into his seat, but soon enough, Stannis’ silhouette moved and rose to its feet. “Here,” he said, and once again, Davos felt Stannis’ fingers in his. He felt cool metal in his palm.

The apartment key, naked without Salla’s heavy mini 8-Ball keychain.

Davos screwed his eyes shut, against his pride and his shame both. As Stannis moved to pull away, Davos’ hand closed around the key, and the fingers that held it. With Stannis stood so near, Davos felt him stiffen, his breath hitch.

“Thanks,” the smile had already fallen from Davos’ face. He looked up, in an attempt to find Stannis’ eyes in the dark. He couldn’t. “You’ve saved my ass twice now.”

“Technically, this is just a follow-up to the first time. Doesn’t really count.”

Davos’ hand tightened around Stannis’, inched up a little until his fingers encircled Stannis’ wrist, the key warming between their tightly pressed palms. “Matters to me, though.”

“I’m guessing it would,” Stannis replied drily.

Davos huffed out a laugh he didn’t know where he pulled from. It rang a bit flatly, and fell the moment it left his lips.

“Newport. Three weeks,” he said again, with heavy sincerity not unlike a vow sealed in blood.

“Yeah.” Stannis pulled away, and his hand slipped free. “Don’t get up, I’ll show myself out.”

The envelope rustled on his lap as he turned slightly towards the door. He followed Stannis’ footsteps as they got progressively fainter.

“Take the--”

“F train,” Stannis cut in. He pulled the door open, letting in a slice of the dim light from the hallway. “Yeah, I know.”

“You know now.”

“Fuck off,” Stannis threw back, and in the bare half-second that Stannis was half in light, half in darkness, Davos saw the slight smile on his face just before the door shut behind him.

Davos felt winded as he fell back against the sofa, cradling the envelope in one hand, palming the key in the other. _Newport, three weeks._ It wasn’t until he was almost asleep when he realized that he didn’t have to go to Newport anymore. He could pay his debt and never show his face in Columbia, and that would be that. But when he woke up again several hours later, with Salla snoring from his corner of the apartment, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind again.

One last frat party for the semester before the kids went off for the holidays. It was snowing outside, and unlike the snowfall earlier that morning, the evening was all wet concrete and dirty, loose snow wedged into the corners of the sidewalks. Davos had his coat wrapped around him, the knitwear he’d nearly worn through from several winters of continuous wear kept him mostly warm despite the stray snowflake or two that had crept down his neck and melted there.

He knocked on Stannis’ door with a gloved hand. If he pressed his ear to the wood, he’d hear the slight scuffling inside more clearly. But the door had already opened before the idea even formed in his head.

“Seaworth,” Stannis greeted, surprised. He was wearing what Davos thought to be the most somberly-colored Baja in existence, loose sleeves rolled sloppily to his elbows.

“Hey,” Davos greeted back, a wide grin on his face. When Stannis didn’t step aside to let him in, the grin tripped on itself and fell. “Oh. Sorry, were you stepping out?”

“No.” He shook his head, in that clear attempt to bat away the confusion. “Yeah, come in.”

Davos thought Stannis’ room couldn’t look more, well… couldn’t look emptier. He was wrong there. He was wrong about a lot of things about the guy but this, he thought, would be an uncontested truth. The study desk was swept clean, the bed stripped bare of bedsheets, linens, and pillowcases. On the floor was a roll-out suitcase nearly filled with clothes. The wardrobe was open, where only several skeletal hangers remained on the rungs.

“Where you goin’?” Davos asked, casual as you please, belied only by the suspicious frown weighing down his brow.

“Going back. Done with finals today.”

“What, back to Newport? But,” Davos all but sputtered. “I thought that was next week.”

Stannis had an odd look on his face, and Davos resisted the urge to squirm under the weight of it.

“I was gonna ask, you know,” Davos lifted a shoulder, somewhat helplessly. “How to get there or how… I dunno, how we were gonna do this,” he ended weakly.

Stannis was silent, and it wasn’t promising at all, what Davos thought that that silence meant.

“Hey,” Davos said, adamant. “I told you I’d go, right? What,” he chuckled, in a pathetic attempt to lighten the mood, and hide the hurt he felt at being so undermined. _Thought you trusted me, man._ “You were just gonna leave?”

Stannis met his eyes and Davos had his answer. Still, there was no remorse in Stannis’ straightforwardness. Just statements of fact that, if Davos had been of lesser make, he’d have taken it all without argument.

“You’re a beer-runner for college kids,” Stannis said, his jaw tight. “A glorified smuggler, really, who exploits students for profit. You should hold up your end of our deal but I’m not so stupid as to hope that you would.”

“Wow, I’m definitely better than that,” Davos said, and part of him marveled at how this guy—this kid—who could easily help him, could, in the same casual effort, bring him down for it.

“But I don’t know that.”

“Dude,” Davos gaped at him, aghast. “You’ve known me for, what…?”

“Three months,” Stannis answered, not missing a beat.

“See? Three--” Oh.

Well.

Davos was a regular guy, or as regular as someone could get in a city that wasn’t quite so. He thought himself an honest man, who gave as much as he promised, and said as much as he meant.

Back home, that actually amounted to something, and Davos grew up staunchly believing that it did. Seven years in New York now and he knew he should’ve known better, and that it shouldn’t hurt him as much as it did, that there existed the type of people who needed more than just promises, or goodwill, or words.  

That must be what being on the business end of distrust felt like, the cave in his chest now that weathered at the seams of his self-preservation. He was angry, he knew, that this guy would think to measure him and measure him wrongly. For the sake of his dignity, he wanted to stay angry, but found that he couldn’t.

He studied Stannis closely, in the scant few seconds that he was allowed it.

The silence that thickened the air piled on the pressure to break it. Because it really was unfair, he thought, that this guy would pass judgment so quickly in the way that he did. But part of Davos understood, and he hated that he did. He wanted to be angry, God damn it.

In the end, however, he wasn’t. Miffed, maybe, and disappointed that he’d expected that a few conversations with the guy were enough to amount to friendship, and with friendship, surely, there was trust, and promises made to each other that didn’t need to be second-guessed.

In the end, Davos found the fight in him to be somewhat less aggressive than before.

“Yeah,” he nodded, suddenly tired. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

Stannis didn’t buckle. His eyes were hard, and the stern line of his lips even more so.

“But I am going, so. I guess you’ll just have to deal with that.”

The surprise on Stannis’ face was like a balm, and Davos relished it, however briefly it had rented Stannis’ countenance. _Yeah, how’s it feel, fucker?_ But whatever victory he felt was short-lived when, after the instantaneous jolt of it, he’d felt the slow, downward grate of guilt, that he’d deal such a cruel hand.

He stood uncomfortably for a while when Stannis didn’t respond right away. _Oh God_ , he thought, the dread in his gut nullifying the brief moment he’d indulged in the childish impulse to gloat. _Did I cross some sort of line? Was that going too far? Shit._

Not for the first time, Davos braced for a fist to the face. Stannis´ fist, that, up to now, kept him wondering if Stannis’ hand was the one he’d felt on his face several nights past. Or if it was some base fantasy that bled from his dreams. Or if it was just a dream, nothing more, just his mind’s way of coping at the time.

Then, Stannis nodded. “Okay,” and the stifling thickness in the air lifted. It lingered, with the promise of returning, but Davos was fine with it backing off for now. He’d deal with it again should it reappear. At the moment, well, he was relieved.

(Later on, he wondered about that too. Years along the line, he seriously wondered if that was the start of their slightly off-kilter relationship. That Stannis judged him prematurely, and, in turn, Davos trusted him prematurely that, on that night, in the bare bones of Stannis’ dorm room, they’d allowed themselves to be affected by each other when, really, they had no right to it at the time.)

“Here,” Stannis said, clearing his throat. He took out a piece of paper from his jeans pocket. A receipt, Davos guessed from where he stood. From the other pocket, he took out his pen. “I’ll give you my address.”

Davos held up a hand that stopped Stannis short, pen poised over paper in his palm.

“I’ll go. Right now,” Davos said. “With you.”

It was terribly unwise, he thought, that he would be so impulsive. All instinct said he shouldn’t, because A, B, C, right up to Z. One of those letters involved telling Salla where he went, not to mention that right at the top, at proto-A, was the very good reason that he wasn’t packed, and that he had a cheque to wait for once the Beta president bobbed his head up for air from the keg Davos left him in half an hour ago.

Stannis frowned at him, waiting for the other to shoe to drop.

It went without saying that Davos couldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Keeping an eye on your investments, right?” he smirked; it felt a bit weak, stuttering on the corner of his lips. He wasn’t quite used to smirking out of, well, mean-spiritedness. He could tease with it well enough, in that playful way when he beat Salla for the nth time on Goldeneye. But to use it as a fatality move for a flawless victory— yeah, he’d never done that before.

He would’ve felt bad about it, considering that Stannis was, technically, on the losing end. But the challenge that flashed in Stannis’ eyes didn’t exactly evoked sympathy. It made Davos press on even more.

“I can pick up a few things on the way.” Davos shrugged, like it was no problem at all. _Sure, Seaworth, because you shop for clothes everyday_. “What time are you leaving?”

Stannis pocketed the receipt, and the pen. “Right now,” he said, in the tone Davos himself used.

Davos’ smirk warmed into a smile, one that, thankfully, sat with more familiarity. “Oh okay, raise the stakes a bit more.”

“Stakes?” Stannis blinked, almost innocently.

Davos laughed, and the tension eased completely. “Asshole.”

* * *


End file.
